Indubitably, our nation’s finances are a mess. America has run deficits 36 of the past 40 years. The national debt is $18 trillion, and it has tripled as a percentage of GDP since 1974.
Each February, the President rolls out his budget—a collection of tomes loaded with tables and text attempting to explain the government’s $3.7 trillion in spending. And where does this money go? Mostly to fund long-existing federal agencies and programs.
The public, already horrified by the rising waters of red ink, are further enraged by Congress’ ineptitude. Both chambers have adopted a budget resolution on time only six times…

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John Marini provides an insightful commentary on Christopher Demuth’s optimistic suggestion that President Trump and the Republican Congress will be able to revive separation of powers and, by so doing, rescue us from an “autopilot government, rife with corruption and seemingly immune to incremental electoral correction” that the administrative state has created. Marini is less…

Americans are worried about the economy and jobs, about national security and safety from terrorism, about securing healthcare, about their children’s education. Lately I haven’t heard too many people talking about the problem of separation of powers. In fact, besides John Marini, Christopher DeMuth, Jonathan Turley, and a few other scholars and policy wonks, I…

I would like to thank Kevin Kosar, Ralph Rossum, and Colleen Sheehan for their thoughtful and generous responses to my essay, “Congress in Search of Itself”. Although there were many areas of agreement, and very few disagreements, each author focused on a different aspect of the problem posed by the contemporary role of Congress, and…

A few years ago Eugene Steuerle (Brookings) and his colleague Tim Roeper developed a “fiscal democracy index.” It measures the extent to which revenues are already claimed by permanent programs—the big entitlement programs, and interest payments on the debt. The remaining “discretionary” portion has to pay for the entire government’s operations, from defense to roads to education to the DoJ. The trajectory over the past half-century looks like this:
Note how in this as in many other respects, the Clinton years look pretty darn good. And note how the index turned negative in 2009. The picture going forward doesn’t look much…

Nicholas Eberstadt comes to Liberty Law Talk this month to discuss his significant new book, A Nation of Takers: America's Entitlement Epidemic. Our conversation focuses on the staggering data of our transfer payment state and how it is inevitably strangling the federal government's operations (by 2010 entitlement spending counted for almost 2/3 of federal spending). We also discuss how we arrived at dependency, the consequences for limited government if it isn't rectified, and some possible ways of redress. Eberstadt's book is a sobering account of our fiscal situation and should be read carefully by all.
Related items: David Armor reviews A…

I admire all of Michael Greve’s essay and agree with much of it. Like him, I worry about the long-term solvency of the United States. Like him, I doubt the capacity of partisan politics as currently structured to address that problem. And like him, I am a dyed-in-the wool Madisonian institutionalist who views changes of incentives as a more reliable basis for reform than an outburst of civic virtue.
It was not so long ago that I regarded Herbert Stein’s well-known aphorism as an antidote to despair. Lately I have begun to wonder. Yes, if something cannot go on forever, it…

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If something can’t go on forever, Herb Stein instructed us, it won’t. The relief that bad arrangements will not get eternally worse yields once more to alarm, however, when we contemplate how they will stop going on forever. With ample warning before we face mortal peril, and sufficient reservoirs of probity, good will, and intelligence…

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